We Have to Go Deeper
Episode 6 of The Rabbit Hole
A Story of the Second Realm
By R.J. Davnall
Copyright 2013 R. J. Davnall
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The Second Realm
Season 1: The Second Gift
Season 2: Children of the Wild
The Rabbit Hole:
Episode 1: Through the Fire and Flames
Episode 2: The Sins of the Brother
Episode 3: Did You Never Dream of Flying?
Episode 4: Catch Me When I Fall
Episode 5: The Only Thing We Know is That We Know Nothing
https://itsthefuturestupid.blogspot.com/
Contents
We Have to Go Deeper
About the Author
The Rabbit Hole
6. We Have to Go Deeper
The room Taslin had found for Rel to await a verdict in was very definitely not a prison cell. Very definitely, by a very narrow margin, not a prison cell. He didn't need Clearsight to pick out all the ways that it had been carefully designed for exactly the level of comfort and welcome that implied.
He had an armchair to sit in, but the floor was bare boards. The window had an excellent view, out over a courtyard and the top of the outer wall to the mad plains and forests beyond, but in making it narrow enough that he wasn't constantly bombarded with Second Realm logic, they had also made it too narrow to squeeze through.
There was a full-size single bed in the room, neatly made with the sheets already turned down, but the frame was unadorned and - he'd checked, out of curiosity - bolted to the floor. He had a mirror, definitely not glass, and the wall opposite bore an elaborate, abstract mural designed to look like a framed painting.
Taslin had told him there would be a Guard outside the door if he needed attention, but he could read the subtext in that clearly enough. It was, almost paradoxically, a step up from the cell Keshnu had carved for him under Vessit, but he was in it and under guard. The rest, he decided, was leniency for good behaviour.
Marking time was hard with only the Second Realm's sky to go on. He didn't have Pevan's trained knack for it. Hopefully she'd get free of her entanglement with the Separatists soon. If they let her go. Their appearance at the trial, Taslin said, had been their most flagrant act since the Treaty of Peace was signed.
Again, he walked to the window and stared at the view. It made about as much sense as the last three days had. He could still feel the dull weight of logic fatigue somewhere in the space just above his eyes. Whatever Taslin had done to help him sleep safely, it had worked better than he could have expected, but by the Gift-Giver's own admission, it was at best a stopgap measure.
There was a knock at the door. "Rel? It's Taslin."
His heart seized, chills flooding through him. It could only be his verdict. No-one had said what the punishment would be if his defence had failed. He took a deep breath and turned to put his back against the wall by the window. Only when he was settled did he call, "Come in."
Her smile told him the answer even before she'd finished stepping into the room. Her blade-like face still made her row of perfect teeth look predatory, but a light danced purple in her eyes. Somewhere in the hours since he'd last seen her, she'd exchanged her formal, flowing, gauzy dress for a low-necked one of shimmering white, stitched with patterns of violet thread that got thicker and thicker towards the cuffs and diagonal hem.
A gem of stunning agate, red enough to be edging out of lavender towards deep pink, hung from a fine silver chain at her neck, and drew his eye remorselessly to her ample cleavage. Her hair was held by a tiara that seemed little more than two pieces of wire weaving through a network of small rubies.
She said, "The case is stalled. No Talerssi has accrued from your attack on Keshnu, and your ignorance is held blameless in the eyes of the Second Realm." A shadow flitted across her features, but was gone in a moment. "There remain things you must answer for in the First Realm."
He nodded. "I will face that in due time. What happens now?"
"Quilo is marshalling his Talerssi through colligation. It will be days before it can be applied to the Separatists." Taslin took a small step forward, the motion beyond tentative and into outright dainty. It was so unlike the Gift-Giver that Rel missed what she said next.
"Sorry, say again?" He blinked, glanced down then back to her. It was good to be able to talk to a Wilder without having to worry about formulating his sentences correctly, but it was making him lazy.
"We have that time to rest and ready ourselves." Again, she took a step forward. She almost looked nervous to approach him. Her voice stayed calm and businesslike, though. "If we can, we must guess the Separatists' next move."
Rel slouched a bit against the wall. "They were trying to recruit me because they wanted a human Clearseer, Chag said. It might be that as long as I'm with you, they don't have a next move." He frowned, "Or they could go after one of the others. Soan of Ilbertin is probably their best bet, or the new lad from North Edda that he's training, Horvin. Dora said she'd had good reports of him."
"That is definitely something we must stop, then. The Separatists have never had a Clearseer, nor should they." Taslin's brow lowered slightly, and her whole face darkened as a result. "We have always been careful to keep the Gift out of their clutches."
That didn't make sense. Rel rubbed his forehead. "Sorry, I don't understand. Your kind have to be Gifted Clearseeing the same way I was?"
"Yes. It is not a matter of common knowledge, obviously. We have not yet found a way to explain the true nature of the Gift to your kind. It was easier to allow the assumption that it arose as a natural mutation." She softened, then a worry pinched wrinkles around her eyes. Say what you like about Wildren in general, Taslin was scrupulous almost to a fault in displaying her emotions. "You don't consider that another insufficient information problem?"
He shook his head as Taslin edged closer again. Her body seemed to be at odds with her face as to what was going on. He put it out of his mind and said, "I can't see a problem it's causing, at least at the moment. Though in this case, spreading the truth could only lower suspicion of your kind in general. I've known a number of humans who were uncomfortable with the idea of me prying into their futures, never mind Wildren."
"Would it really allay doubts?" She was now standing only a few feet away, her eyes level with his. This close, her irises looked like nests of crystals, cut finer than any human hand could manage, laid next to each other with perfect precision. Long, glittering lashes flickered as she went on, "If so, it might be easier to explain that there hasn't been a new Clearseer among my kind since the Treaty of Peace. We have tried to make that known before, though, and your kind were generally sceptical."
"They would be," he growled. "You really haven't created any new Clearseers in that time? Why not?"
"Our supply of the Gift is limited. The decision was made that your kind needed it more than mine." She nodded as Rel's eyebrows shot up. "It seems an extreme decision to me, but many decisions were made and codified at that time that I do not fully understand, even without looking at those involving First Realm logic."
"You weren't party to the planning? Dora said she thought you were young, forgive my saying so, but-"
"Rel, I wasn't born then."
"What? But..." Well, Dora's guess had been right, then. He supposed there was a youthfulness to Taslin that wasn't just the vanity of her appearance. But still.... "How old are you?"
She flinched slightly, her eyes flickering away from his for a moment. "As close as can be reckoned, I'm about Pevan'
s age. Seventeen."
It took him a moment to recollect his wits. His jaw dangled open like a dropped puppet's. Seventeen? She put all his training and expertise to shame, despite his extra years. A thought popped up, offered some consolation. "You mean seventeen years since you Named yourself?"
That brought a short, sharp chuckle out of her, the refractive depths of her eyes shimmering. "No, seventeen since the neonatal shear that created me. Do you measure your age from your first word? It's more like fourteen since I took a name."
Fourteen years. To learn a whole language and, from what Rel had seen over the last month, almost a whole alien logic, not to mention all the skills and powers of a Gift-Giver. He swallowed. "I think we must be teaching our children the wrong way."
Again, Taslin laughed, her face open and joyful. The guilelessness of it triggered old, instinctive suspicion, but he brushed it aside. "Knowledge acquisition is easier under our logic than yours. The process is not complicated by physics."
Shaken, admiring the Gift-Giver in a completely new light, Rel clawed back the lost thread of the conversation. "Still, couldn't you just ask the Gift-Givers who drafted the treaty to explain?"
"They all died long before I was born." Her face turned sombre, almost fast enough for the change to seem unnatural.
"God, I'm sorry." Rel managed to speak despite the sudden twist of ice in his gut. "It must have